As far as I can remember web browsers replace the characters of a password field with stars (did Mosaic already do this?) but this feature is not always helpful. Fortunately you can change this!
When I sit in my home office there is no one around who’s a thread to my passwords. Nevertheless my browser hides the characters in the password input fields. I hate that since it would be easier to enter the password and possibly correct it if I could see what I type.
There are add-ons for various browsers to do this simple task:
- Firefox – Unhide passwords
- Opera – Show/Hide passwords
- Chrome – Show password on focus
- Safari – ShowPass
- There does not seem to be any extension for the Internet Explorer.
So if you’re not more paranoid than the average nerd give one of the add-ons a try. You might not want to un-install it again.